Grave Gamer News & Views — mass effect 3

Kai Leng vs Shepard by Benjamin Huen

Bioware Addressing Mass Effect 3’s Contemptuous Ending

I’ve already dug into Mass Effect 3’s dissatisfying ending, and I reflected the same feeling quite a lot of you fans out there share: the bulk of the game is brilliant; the ending, however, is derisive, narrow visioned tripe.

While Bioware’s general manager and co-founder, Ray Muzyka, doesn’t agree with the criticism – calling ME3 “the best work we’ve created yet” – he does concede through the Bioware Blog that the developer needs to bend a knee with humility and honor the loyal fans that have seen Shepard through to the bitter end.

Aside from previously planned content still in the works, the development team is working overtime in order to provide fans with the sense of closure they’re missing.  Pooling together what you, the fans, have said on numerous social outlets like Facebook and Twitter, as well as forums and gaming outlets, Muzyka says, “Exec Producer Casey Hudson and the team are hard at work on a number of game content initiatives that will help answer the questions, providing more clarity for those seeking further closure to their journey."  We’re likely a bit far off from seeing this content yet, but solid details are coming our way as soon as April.

"It’s incredibly painful to receive feedback from our core fans that the game’s endings were not up to their expectations. Our first instinct is to defend our work and point to the high ratings offered by critics – but out of respect to our fans, we need to accept the criticism and feedback with humility,” admits Ray, in a surprisingly honest open letter to fans.  In most circumstances, if a dev is liable to say anything at all, it’s usually the former; defending their work tooth and nail, bouncing criticism (constructive or otherwise) right off.

Mass Effect purveyors, what do you think?    I desperately need closure in place of the ambiguous finale my Shepard received, there’s no two ways around that.  But to have an official ending altered (or supplemented, as is the case here), possibly damaging Bioware’s original vision for the game, in an attempt to get a gold star in the fan service department?  How does this concession sound to you?

All great sagas come to a close.  No matter how long we want to stay in the universes we’ve grown to love, a finale is imminent; needed even.  The ambitious sci-fi RPG Mass Effect was destined to end from the start, planned by Bioware as a three chapter odyssey where the most important game mechanic was choice.  The galaxy rippled and changed depending on your actions, with every decision shaping the course of the narrative.  Change can be ushered in by something as insignificant as a conversation.  Or as big as taking a life.

Every choice and mistake were yours to own not just for one game, but for all.  Bioware promised the path you blazed with Commander Shepard would uniquely affect every title in the series, right up until the finale.  Mass Effect 3 does in fact drop the curtains on gaming’s best sci-fi series, but you’ll be disappointed to learn that three games worth of building alliances, crushing enemies, and choosing how to best save the galaxy have no effect on the game’s ending, very much robbing Bioware’s opus of a sense of finality.  Keep in mind that Mass Effect 3 is still the spiraling, nuanced sci-fi adventure you want; just not the epic conclusion fans deserve.

You took off the whole day to play Mass Effect?  Bro, it’s what they want.

My girlfriend’s unboxing of her new favorite game.  I’ll get to play…some year.